Since day one that we are driven by this joyful feeling of experimenting. No matter if you succeed or not, the joy of fail and error and surpass that is the exact feeling when you surf. And I truly believe that is the core at Van der Waal: try it, even you know that you are going to fail. Because when you achieve it, the feeling will overcome all the frustrations in the path. Even better, if you are as lucky as I am, you will meet a lot of crazy guys that really believe in you and will exceed their capabilities to help you somehow.
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Me and Afonso are always looking for new materials and new 'recipes'... so here we are, at my kitchen, looking for another material. It was a failed experiment, but like Becket said: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. "
Can you imagine starting a business out of nowhere, just because some friends believed in your idea and suddenly you’re giving samples to Kelly Slater, talking face to face with Conner Coffin and Sebastian Zietz at a WSL party in Peniche, or being invited as an innovation brand to ISPO BrandNew Munich? Well, I didn’t… really.
But the truth is that since day one we were blessed with these good-hearted souls that just wanted to share thoughts, help us promoting our brand asking nothing in exchange, place us in the spotlight as an alternative to surf wax, create content or just share their passion about surf alternatives to an established surf industry.
This week, a friend of a friend told us that her father might have a good (and faster) solution for us to cut the hexagons. For days, I was dreaming about leaving my small and handcrafted machines for a professional and faster way to cut our hexagons. Inside my mind, I was thanking from the bottom of my back to not have to bend over any more to pick up sheets, parcel out the hexagons and pack them accordingly to the orders.
For over 3 hours, this father of a friend of a friend gave me his time. He tried everything… laser-cut, plot machines, and a huge CNC cutting machine. And after all those fail experiments, we talked for a really long time about what could work. In the end, late for all the orders, knowing that would have to cut hexagons all night, I left with a huge feeling of gratitude. I never had, in all afternoon, a feeling that I would (or will have to) pay anything. This guy shared all his wisdom and advice and time (as you know, the most precious value around) asking nothing in return. He was just really glad to help us and he was almost as frustrated as I was when his machines could not save the job.
Didn’t work out. And at the first sight, looks that we have failed. But the truth is that I don’t think that way. In fact, machines didn’t work out as we believed they would, but thanks to the conversation, his ideas, and thoughts, later that week talking with another nice guy from Papeloja, a small store where I used to buy blades for our small machines, that was as intrigued as our friends’ father on how we could cut it in a better way, we found the perfect solution.
And this little journey led us to increase our production absurdly. Usually, to cut around 1000 hexagons I would need a week, with some nights cutting (if some decent swell as arrived and I wanted to surf). Right now, thanks to these guys, I only need a couple of hours. As a plus, our hexagons are prettier, cut face to face, take less space inside the packaging (making it lighter) and we reduce errors, causing less waste. And that is why I say that I’m the luckiest guy in the world. Thanks to each one of you :D
